LANSING, MI - The welfare benefits of at least 11,000 recipients are at stake in the Michigan Supreme Court, which is weighing whether the state overstepped its authority in enforcing a five-year lifetime limit on receiving cash assistance.

After a new law took effect in October 2011, state Department of Human Services Director Maura Corrigan changed policy to end welfare benefits for people who were beyond 60 months of eligibility under federal law. The state has a 48-month limit, but months that recipients get a hardship exemption - working single parents, for instance, or caregivers for disabled family members - do not count.

"Once they run into the federal law, there is not a Michigan right to fall back on," Solicitor General John Bursch told reporters after the high court heard arguments last week.

But Jacqueline Doig, an attorney with the Center for Civil Justice in Saginaw - which represented families who sued - told justices the state "can and must comply" with the 48-month limit because it is required under state law.